Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

Who has been the greatest fourth-quarter come from behind franchise of the Super Bowl era? Is it the Patriots, with Brady? The 49ers with Montana and Young? The Cowboys with the likes of Staubach, Aikman and Romo? The Colts with Unitas and Manning? The Steelers?

Well, here's the answer. The greatest fourth quarter comeback franchise of the Super Bowl era is . . .

. . . the St. Louis / Phoenix / Arizona Cardinals.

Yes, that's right. Those same Cardinals who have been mired in mediocrity for nearly all of the past fifty-two years, rarely seeing a winning season much less a postseason appearance and whose only really notable season was the Cinderella Super Bowl run of 2008. The image the Cardinals franchise conjures up is hardly one of fourth-quarter game-saving heroics. In spite of that, the numbers show that the Cardinals have been better than any other team of the last half-century in coming from behind late in the game.

Since 1966, the Cards have played a total of 814 games (800 regular season and fourteen playoff). Of those, 112 games are 4th quarter comeback victories or ties. That works out to a percentage of 13.76, far and away better than any of the 32 NFL teams. This record is curiously impressive in light of the fact that the Cardinals have one of the lowest overall winning percentages of the past 52 seasons.

Here is the ranked list of all 32 teams by the percentage of fourth quarter comeback wins of the total number of games played by the franchise.

CARDINALS (.1376)
COLTS (.1284)
RAIDERS (.1280)
CHARGERS (.1252)
DOLPHINS (.1237)
BRONCOS (.1235)
49ERS (.1213)
COWBOYS (.1208)
STEELERS (.1198)
EAGLES (.1193)
PATRIOTS (.1185)
REDSKINS (.1162)
SEAHAWKS (.1158)
SAINTS (.1157)
FALCONS (.1153)
TITANS/OILERS (.1130)
BROWNS (.1127)
VIKINGS (.1119)
PANTHERS (.1117)
BUCCANEERS (.1111)
LIONS (.1107)
BENGALS (.1100)
JAGUARS (.1099)
JETS (.1091)
BILLS (.1076)
TEXANS (.1065)
CHIEFS (.1053)
GIANTS (.1046)
RAVENS (.1040)
BEARS (.1021)
PACKERS (.0993)
RAMS (.0920)

Todd Pence wrote:This record is curiously impressive in light of the fact that the Cardinals have one of the lowest overall winning percentages of the past 52 seasons.

Well, they have been behind in the 4th quarter a lot...

ha. Interesting. Never in a million years would I peg the Cardinals there.

Sort of curious now as to what each NFL franchises greatest 4th quarter comeback is. Not full 2nd half, just most points trailing at any point in the 4th.

For the Jets of course it's the Dolphins Monday Night game where they trailed 30-7 with about 13 minutes to go in the fourth, 40-37 in OT.

Colts I remember had a crazy won against the Bucs when they trailed by 21 with something like 4 minutes to go

Coryell's Cardiac Cards!

The greatest Cardinal comeback in terms of points didn't involve the Cardiac Cardinals, or Jake the Snake. In 1987, they were down 28-3...yes...28-3 in the 4th quarter to Tampa Bay. Neil Lomax threw three touchdown passes, and the Cardinals returned a James Wilder fumble for a score. 31-28. Tampa Bay missed a long FG at the very end of the game.